This book is well complemented by:

Arthur Dumchev

Carol Dweck

Doug Lemov, Katie Ezzi and Erica Woolway

To my wife Reneim and son Robert.

Harry Lorraine

To my son Jeff and daughter Julie.

Jerry Lucas

Foreword by the scientific editor

What would be your reaction if you found out that someone memorized the number pi to 8 thousand 332 decimal places and, due to this, got into the Russian Book of Records? Would you be surprised? Have you experienced mistrust? Did you think that this record holder is not like everyone else?

If at least one of these assumptions is true, then this book will teach you a lot! The fact is that memorizing 8 thousand numbers is a task that is feasible even for a preschool child. You just need to know special techniques for using memory and imagination (mnemonics), mastery of which allows you to find approaches to memorizing anything, be it numbers, terms, foreign words or names of people.

There is no exaggeration here - I am talking about what I experienced firsthand. After learning the principles of remembering in this book, I realized that I had more control over my life and could now decide what I wanted and would remember and what I did not. I admit, at first I used my memory for trifles - I showed tricks to friends. No one could understand how I could memorize a list of 40 items in two minutes and remember the serial number of each of these items. And when I found out that the Russian record did not exceed 10 thousand digits of pi, I was very surprised and immediately decided to break it - and now I am the Russian record holder, because I remember more than 11 thousand digits of pi.

Finally, having played enough with memorization techniques, I began to use them for more practical purposes - remembering people's names and faces, learning languages. Such techniques allow you to memorize up to 200 foreign words per week, devoting no more than 30 minutes a day to learning. I studied for two to three hours every day and in a couple of months I improved my English so much that now I listen to audiobooks in the original.

Many people are surprised by such “feats” of memory, but only because people are unfamiliar with the art of memorization. This book outlines the basic principles and methods that you can apply right away: you don’t need to spend months developing your memory - you just learn about the method and start using it.

How to get the most out of reading? You will come across a lot of examples with detailed descriptions of ways to remember this or that information. The examples are adapted for the Russian reader and are easy to understand, so you will be very tempted to immediately read the proposed memorization option and move on. But it’s much more important to try to apply the techniques you read about yourself. This will allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed methods and understand how your memory works.

After reading this book, you will at least get an idea of ​​how to memorize any kind of information easier and faster, and at maximum, you will significantly improve your quality of life by starting to apply the art of memorization to solve everyday problems.

Arthur Dumchev,

author of the book “Remember Everything”

Preface
Jerry Lucas

As a child, my mind was always busy with something. I don’t remember moments when he would not indulge in some kind of activity - from talking with other people to playing games of my own invention. By the age of eight, I had so much nervous energy that it was difficult for me to sit still. During long car trips, I constantly fidgeted, stomped my feet and fussed so much that my parents, driven to white heat, kept asking me to “calm down at least a little.”

Thanks to this mental habit, I wrote very competently from childhood. If you break down words into letters and arrange them in alphabetical order, then the spelling of the word is remembered very well. Here are some examples: MEMORY transformed into AMPTYA, JERRY LUCAS became DEJIR AKLSU, and HARRY LORAIN became AGIRR EILNOR! Having learned to arrange words in alphabetical order, I began to memorize them in this form - when you read the chapter on how to memorize words in your native or foreign language, you will understand how I do it. Such a system can be used, since a word arranged in alphabetical order is, in principle, no different from words in a foreign language.

After a short time, I began to combine this game with other mental games. If I start telling you details now, you will decide that I am crazy, and therefore I will not do it. I can only say that these games required a lot of calculations, reasoning and comparisons from the child. As I grew older, my mental games became more and more complex. I began to develop simplified systems to help me remember the material I had learned in school. I always thought that school was 90 percent memorization, and I wanted to make it easier so I could spend less time memorizing. The systems I came up with worked, then I began to complicate and improve them. Using them, I did well in elementary and middle school.

I want to assure you that I kept all these systems in the deepest secrecy. Not a single living soul knew that I possessed, for example, the ability to spell out a word in alphabetical order before the other person had time to pronounce it completely. Nobody knew that I was doing other psychological games and systems for improving and training memory. Important changes occurred when I entered college. I read one of Harry Lorraine's books and used his methods and recommendations in areas where I found them better, simpler and more effective than my own. I modified some of his methods, adapting them to my systems. Lorraine became my idol, and I very soon became convinced that combining his methods with mine helped me greatly in my studies.

When I went to Ohio State University, my roommate in the dorm was John Havlicek, a professional basketball player and star for the Boston Celtics. John was the first person to know about my memory exercises. The very first lesson really upset me. Entering the classroom, I sat down in the last row so as not to obscure the board and the teacher from other students - I am more than one meter eighty tall. It was a lecture on US history. The teacher spent 15 minutes telling us what he expected from us and how our classes would be held. Before leaving the hall after the lecture, he said:

– Athletes who expect to sit in the back rows, do nothing and get decent grades will very soon realize their mistake. Everybody's Free.

I told John Havlicek about this, sharing my plans to definitely use my memory training systems so as not to lose face in the dirt.

– What systems? - John asked, and for the first time in my life I told a stranger about my methods for improving memory and memorization, about how, as a child, I sorted words into letters in alphabetical order in my mind. I even showed Havlicek how I do it.

It seemed to me that at first he didn’t believe me. I explained to him as best I could how my brain worked, and he apparently decided that I was not right in my head, but nevertheless suggested that I alphabetize the words of his choice. After I successfully completed this task, Havlicek wished me good luck in using my system. As for the American history course, my system worked great. On the exam, I scored 99 points - the next highest result was 77. I graduated with excellent results, having spent four times less time on it than most other students.

Many years later, after I started playing for the New York Knickerbockers, I met Harry Lorraine. Our first conversation lasted 18 hours. Obviously, we had a lot in common, because we began to work together on various projects, including the creation of this book, which combined our methods, ideas, thoughts, systems and memories. Believe me, if you have the patience to read the book to the end and put into practice the advice contained in it, you will see that human memory has no limits.

Jerry Lucas

Preface
Harry Lorraine

Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to receive a full-fledged education. I couldn't even finish the first grade of second-level school. True, in this short time I showed very good academic performance and was one of the best students in the class. Why? I had an average IQ, and my “natural” memory was no different from most people. I must admit that I always thought that I had the worst memory in the world. I got good grades for only one reason: I used memory training systems. Everything was very simple.

Jerry has already told you how he became hooked on alphabetizing words as a child. My passion was card tricks. I think I really annoyed my classmates, all the time turning to them with the request to “choose a card, any card.” One of the tricks that I showed in those years, strictly speaking, was not such a thing - I was just demonstrating the capabilities of memory. The whole thing was to remember the order of the entire shuffled deck: I was shown cards one at a time, and I remembered in what order they were located in the deck. I still sometimes remember this trick, but at that time it was the only mnemonic trick I knew.

One day a very simple thought occurred to me: if I can remember playing cards using a simple system, then why not use the same method to remember other things? This thought helped me choose a career that suits my calling. To begin with, I compiled a bibliography of all the materials available to me regarding memory training, and what I read allowed me to develop my own system. As the years passed, I began to show the results of my system by speaking to groups in businesses, institutions, and so on. These performances consisted solely of demonstrating my mnemonic abilities. In those years, many people came up to me after performances, wanting to know how I “remember all these things.”

It was then that I wrote my first book on mnemonic techniques, which was published in millions of copies and translated into nine languages. The first book was followed by others. I began teaching courses and seminars on memory training and began to receive many letters from people who were able to significantly improve their memory thanks to my system. One of the letters I received was from Jerry Lucas, who was a freshman at Ohio University at the time. Jerry and I corresponded for several years. He developed his own memory training system and was very interested in my methods, adapting them to his own experiences and using them in his studies. I couldn't ask for a better or more dedicated student.

I continued to do my work, Jerry continued to do his. I ended up founding the Harry Lorraine Memorial School, and Jerry ended up playing on one of the best basketball teams. All this time we continued to correspond. A few years ago, Jerry started showing off his skills on national television, doing what I had been doing for 20 years. Like me, he simultaneously memorized up to 500 faces of people present in the studio. At that time, no one knew about our correspondence acquaintance.

When Jerry started playing for the Kniks, we finally met. That first meeting lasted almost a day. We both understood that even our trained memory would not help us remember all the details of that first conversation, and at some point we decided to record it on tape. In this book you will find many excerpts from that memorable dialogue. This will sound immodest, but I won’t be lying if I say that I envy you! I envy the discoveries you will make, I envy you that you will now enter new, unknown areas, and enjoy the joy associated with learning. How I would like to be in your place now!

Harry Lorraine

Chapter 1
A little history

Systems for training and improving memory already existed in antiquity. People in those days had no means of recording at hand, and only a good memory and systems for improving it helped storytellers remember stories, poems and songs. Greek and Roman orators delivered their long speeches with incredible precision, memorizing them, thought by thought, using mnemonics.

Essentially, they tied (or associated) each part of their speech with a specific location in their homes. Places in houses were called loci in Latin. The first thought of the speech was probably associated with the front door, the second with the hallway, the third with some piece of furniture in it, and so on. When the speaker had to deliver a speech, thought by thought, he mentally imagined himself entering his house. Imagining the front door, he remembered the first thesis of the speech. The second place, the hallway, reminded him of the next thesis, and so on, until the very end of the speech. This technique of remembering by forming associations with places, or loci, left its mark in the English language, where, wanting to emphasize the first, main idea, they say in the first place (firstly, in the first place).

The father of this technique for training memory and facilitating memorization, method of loci, They consider Simonides of Keos, who lived in Greece around 500 BC. e., however, on many fragments of ancient manuscripts, dated to eras several hundred years earlier than the life of Simonides, one can find descriptions of mnemonic techniques that orators have resorted to at all times.

Cicero wrote that lawyers and orators of his time widely used methods of memorization and memory training, and in the dialogue “On the Orator” he describes the mnemonic systems that he himself resorted to when memorizing his speeches.

We must understand that in those ancient times, oratory was considered and was very important. “We would never have understood how great the power [of trained memory] is,” wrote the philosopher Quintilian, “we would never have realized its divinity, if a good memory had not raised the glorious art of oratory to such a height.”

The ancients also knew that memory training could help organize thinking. From a fragment of a manuscript dated 400 BC. e., we learn that “a great and wonderful invention is memory, which is always useful both for study and for life.” Aristotle, having praised mnemonic devices in one of his writings, said that “the habit of them will prepare a person for better judgment.”

If Simonides was the inventor of the “theater of memory”, and Cicero was the great mentor on its stage, then St. Thomas Aquinas became the patron saint of mnemonic devices, skillfully turning them into an art imbued with faith and ethical perfection.

In the Middle Ages, monks and philosophers were practically the only people who knew about mnemonic devices and used them in practice. These techniques were tied to the foundations of a wide variety of religions, for example, mnemonics were used to remember virtues and sins, and some priests and philosophers taught that mnemonics showed us how to reach heaven and avoid hell.

In 1491, Peter of Ravenna wrote The Phoenix, one of the most famous books on memory training systems. This book made mnemonic art secular. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the book of Ravenna was followed by other works on this topic.

King Francis I of France and King Henry III of England resorted to mnemonic devices. Shakespeare also used systems to facilitate memorization - his Globe Theater was often called the “theater of memory.” Systems of memorization and memory training were outlined in the works of philosophers of the 17th century (for example, Francis Bacon in the book “On the Improvement of the Sciences”), and some scientists claim that Leibniz invented differential and integral calculus, trying to create a mnemonic system that would make it easier to memorize numbers .

So you see that there is nothing new in memory training and improvement systems. Unfortunately, these techniques and techniques fell completely out of use for several centuries. People who continued to use them were often considered sorcerers and witches. Memory training systems and mnemonic devices remained in use as a source of public entertainment - and today people perform on stages to amaze audiences with such tricks. However, for serious purposes, mnemonic devices are rarely used today, if at all. From time to time, unsuccessful attempts were made to revive interest in these techniques.

In a book entitled Memory, 19th-century philosopher and mnemonist William Stokes describes the extent of public interest in the art of memory training:

It is true that, despite the written evidence of the past and the achievements, triumphs and exploits of the present, the “educated” people, the intellectual strata - the world - do not know and, I think, do not want to know anything about the wonderful value of this art. The assimilation of science by a mere few thousands of a select few cannot be considered anything significant if we take into account the myriads of uneducated people who inhabit our Earth, and finally understand that our intellectual health requires daily exercise - just as our bodily health requires proper breathing. Despite what has already been said and done, we can, by comparison, say that this art is practically unknown to anyone else!

However, there is no doubt that very little time will pass before it will be recognized on a par with the most respected sciences. Our descendants, looking back, will understand that my apology in defense of memory is evidence of intellectual darkness reigning in an age that boasts of its enlightenment...

Let us hope that the day will come when the inability to use mnemonics will be considered as shameful as the inability to read these days!

Stokes's book was published in 1888. More than 100 years have passed, and we can now say with pleasure that the art of memorization and memory training is again coming to the fore, that it is not only being taught again, but that it has risen to a level that the ancients could not have imagined in their wildest dreams (and not only ancient) thinkers.

Chapter 2
Associations

G.L.: Can you imagine ancient orators wandering the streets of the city, looking for buildings that could be used as loci?

J.L.: Yes, and not only that, this search added to their knowledge, and not only helped them remember what they needed to remember. As a result, they realized that any information already ordered in some sequence can be used as loci, or things with which some other things can be associated.

G.L.: This means that one day such a researcher encountered, for example, the signs of the zodiac and suddenly realized that he had very successfully found as many as 12 loci. But first he had to learn them. Much later, some people realized that such loci could be found in the Bible, but first they had to be learned.

J.L.: Are you saying that this is the case where knowledge begets knowledge?

Any memory - trained or untrained - is based on associations, although, of course, this is in a sense a simplification. After reading our book, you will learn many systems for building associations, but not everything is so simple. You see, when people say, “I forgot,” it’s not really true, they just can’t remember.

How can you forget what you didn't remember? Let's pay attention to this statement and we will find the key to remembering - if you remember something from the very beginning, then how were you able to do it? forget?

Therefore, from the very beginning you need to force yourself to remember something. How to do it? The simple association system you'll learn in this book will do it for you automatically!

One of the foundations of trained memory is what we call initial awareness. Everything that you knew in advance, before memorizing, you simply cannot forget. The application of our system of forming associations will simultaneously create an initial awareness - for before anything is remembered, it must be carefully considered. Forming associations will help you with this too.

But you may ask, how do you form an association with intangible or abstract things? This question brings us to another fundamental basis of trained memory. It's always easier to remember something that makes sense than something that doesn't. As you dive into the material, you will understand that there are no intangible and completely abstract things in the world, at least as far as the memorization system is concerned. You will learn to transform the most abstract and ephemeral things into something quite concrete and tangible and, most importantly, having a very specific meaning for you. Once you master this simple technique, remembering and learning for a lifetime will become simple and easy.

We would like to emphasize that almost all learning is based on memorization. Teachers do not like to admit this truth, although they know very well that it is so. And any student knows that the more material he remembers, the higher the grade he will receive on the exam from the teacher, who may verbally condemn “memorization.” We believe that three fundamental skills are important for learning: 1) information seeking; 2) remembering information and 3) applying memorized information. Finding information depends on teachers and sources of knowledge, applying information depends on you, but we will take care of point 2.

Let's start with associations. First, you should know that we use associations all our lives, and the only problem is that they usually arise subconsciously and we do not recognize them as such. This means that any thing is easily and permanently remembered if it forms a clear association, even a subconscious one. However, since no person is able to control his subconscious, the search for the necessary associations turns into a random process - of course, a subconscious association can be found, but not always.

This leads to the basic rule of memorization: you can remember any new information if it is associated with what you already know or remember.

Do you remember the lines of the sheet music, the treble clef and the notes E, G, B, D and F? If your music teacher once recommended that you memorize the phrase “We ate red beans with salt,” then you definitely remember them. The teacher followed the basic rule of memorization, perhaps without realizing it. It helped you remember new (and abstract) information—the names of the notes E, G, B, D, and F—by linking them to something you already knew, or at least could understand and visualize, with the simple phrase, “Salt and I.” "We ate red beans." It is obvious that this technique works, and works effectively.

Primary school teachers have been telling their students for years that it is very easy to remember that after “zh” and “sh” you write “i” if you memorize a simple rhyme: “Zhi and shi we write through i.” Since all second graders know how to write “and,” they easily connect familiar information with new information, and the problem is solved. Again, in this case, the teacher follows the basic rule of memorization.

Very few people are able to remember what the outlines of Russia, Greece and any other country look like on geographical maps, with the exception of Italy. This is an irrefutable fact. People remember the shape of Italy because they have been told (or read) that Italy looks like a boot. Again we see here the same good old rule - we know the shape of the boot very well, and we will never forget the shape of Italy if this association has been established.

I have given the most common examples of the formation of associations - conscious and subconscious. This practice is typical for all spheres of human activity: medical students use this mnemonic device to memorize, for example, the Latin names of the cranial nerves: “A donkey sharpens his ax on an oryasina, and a fakir, leading guests, wants to howl like a shark.” Some students imagine houses on the shores of the Great Lakes in order to remember their names ( H uron, O ntario, M ichigan, E rie, S superior). To remember the fact that Mount Fuji is 12,365 feet high, associate it with the calendar: there are 12 months and 365 days in a year.

The problem with such associations is that they only work in relation to some very specific things, that is, they are limited in their application. The memory training system you learn in this book can be applied to anything. This system is limited only by your desire to use it. The point is this: if you know how consciously linking what you want to remember with what you already know means you have a trained memory. It's really very simple. A person can arbitrarily form any associations - quickly and naturally.

The memory training system that you will find in this book is in no way unnatural - it simply streamlines or correctly organizes a natural process. How often, painfully cracking your fingers, do you try to remember the necessary information during an exam, saying: “Oh, that reminds me...” As a rule, what reminds you of the thing you want to remember has absolutely nothing in common with it. Somewhere in the dark recesses of your subconscious, a completely absurd random association formed on its own.

Why, if ancient orators could use their own homes as loci for memorizing the talking points of a speech, did they nevertheless look for other houses to get more loci at their disposal? It wasn't that the same house or building couldn't be used again and again—the speakers could and did do it. (“Loci,” said one thinker, “are like wax tablets that remain ready for work after the previously written words have been erased from their surface.”)

No, the problem was that the “home” loci became too familiar after a while - after all, a staircase is a staircase, and a hallway is a hallway. True, the ancient speakers never came up with an important principle of memorization: the theses of a speech or anything else do not necessarily need to be associated with loci - these theses, that is, the key words of the speech, can be associated with each other, so that one reminds you of the next.

This simple idea is the basis of a multi-link memory system. First, we'll show you how to use it to remember specific, tangible things. True, we will change the rule a little by adding one important phrase to it. Here's the revised rule: in order to remember any new piece of information, it must be something in a funny way related to what you already know or remember. Adding this simple short phrase accomplishes several things at once: it creates initial awareness, necessary for any memorization, will force you to concentrate, make good use of the power of your imagination, and, in addition, teach you to consciously form associations.

Let's say you want to remember a sequence of the following ten words: airplane, tree, envelope, earring, bucket, sing, ball, salami, star, nose. Great, now imagine an airplane. For now, we don't need to apply the rules of memorization. But now we move on to the next subject - the tree.

And here is the time to apply the rule, assuming that you already know or remember what an airplane is. A new piece of information to be remembered is a tree. All you need to do is create a funny picture or mental image that connects the two. At the same time, in no case should you try to connect them logically into some meaningful whole.

An example of a logical picture: a plane lands near a tree. It's not funny, and while it's unlikely, it's still possible, which means the association probably won't work. The picture should be funny, absurd and depict the impossible. For example, a giant tree flies through the sky like an airplane; the plane grows out of the ground like a tree; airplanes grow on trees; millions of trees are like passengers boarding planes. These are crazy, ridiculous pictures. Choose one of these pictures or come up with your own, equally absurd, and clearly imagine it.

Of course, we don't mean that you imagine the words airplane And tree. You need to imagine a picture, these objects themselves in action, and the most amusing and ridiculous associations between these two objects will lie precisely in the actions, as in the examples we have given.

For a split second, hold this picture, this action, in your imagination. At the same time, you are not doing anything unusual - after all, you have been imagining some pictures all your life. In fact, you can't even think without imagining some pictures. Aristotle said this many centuries ago at the beginning of one of his books: “It is impossible even to think without imagining mental pictures.”

Seeing pictures in your mind, imagining mental images, is like having a movie screen in your head. If you read the words husband, child, car and so on, then you will not be able to think about these people and objects without “seeing” their images in your mind, even for an insignificant fraction of a second. Try not to visually imagine an elephant when you think about this animal. What's happening? You can't help but picture an elephant when you think about it!

OK then. Pick up a funny association between an airplane and a tree and mentally imagine a picture of this association.

Once you try this, stop thinking about the association. This attempt is extremely important. We usually tell our students that if our system does not work, then they themselves must work! It sounds stupid, but it's true. Just trying to use our system improves memory, regardless of whether the system works or not. However, our system still works, and works great. It will greatly improve the quality of your memory.

The next item on the list is envelope. We we think what you already know or remember about the tree. Now you have to remember a new item - an envelope. Again, imagine a funny picture or association between the tree and the envelope and draw it in your mind's eye. You might imagine millions of envelopes growing on a tree, or a tree sealing a giant envelope, or trying to stuff a tree into an envelope. We can give you a lot of different tips, but you must choose one single funny and ridiculous picture. Select it and hold it in your imagination for a moment.

You don't have to put in any effort to see the picture - the whole procedure takes a split second. It is very important to clearly imagine the picture. In the process of memorization, the clarity of the image plays a role, and not the time during which you hold the picture in your imagination. So, try to see a clear picture within a second.

The next thing to remember is earring. An object already known to you is an envelope. Create a funny association between the envelope and the earring. You can imagine wearing an envelope as an earring, or opening an envelope and having thousands of earrings fly out of it in your face.

Things will go better if you come up with your own pictures. By offering you paintings from our repertoire, we take away part of your initial awareness. We will continue to give you our recommendations, but regardless of whether you use ours or your own associations, the pictures in your imagination should be very clear.

Choose one of our associative connections between the envelope and the earring or come up with your own and visually imagine it.

Bucket– this is a new thing to remember. Create an association with the earring - for example, imagine yourself with buckets in your ears instead of earrings, or a bucket with a handle covered with earrings. Draw yourself one of these images.

Next step: you need to remember the word "sing". (This is not an object or a noun, and we put this word in the list only to show that in fact it is not at all important for building an association, as you will see for yourself in a moment.) Associate “sing” with the thing, which you already know - with a bucket. It will be enough to imagine a singing bucket. You can also imagine yourself singing with a bucket on your head. This, of course, is quite possible, but the picture turns out to be very funny, and therefore also suitable. The only indispensable condition: the picture must be clear.

Next item - ball. Associate it with the word “sing.” Imagine a singing ball or a person who sings, and thousands of colorful balls fly out of his mouth.

Salami. Imagine a giant salami loaf playing with a ball, or a basketball player (best of all Jerry Lucas) dribbling a piece of salami instead of a ball.

Star. Imagine a huge piece of salami shimmering in the sky. Or cut the star into slices like salami! Imagine a picture of this exciting action!

Nose. Draw in your imagination a person with a sparkling star instead of a nose. Or a star with a big nose. Draw a clear picture in your mind's eye.

If you tried to imagine all the pictures, you probably remembered all ten objects. Difficulties in recall may only affect the first item, since you do not have an association that would help you remember it. We'll show you how to get out of this predicament soon. If you remember the first item, great, if not, then it's an airplane. Try to remember all the other items yourself before reading the list below. So think about an airplane. What does it remind you of? Of course, about the tree.

Now think about the tree - it reminds you of... an envelope. Think of an envelope and it will remind you of... an earring. The earring will vividly remind you of the bucket. What stupid thing was this bucket doing? Oh yes, it sang. This association will remind you of the word “sing.” What else was singing there? Ball. The thought of a ball will immediately remind you of salami, and salami, in turn, will remind you of a star. And finally, the star will immediately lead you to the idea of ​​the nose.

Well, did it work? You had to remember all ten words. If you're having trouble with a couple of them, if you think you've forgotten them, it's probably because you didn't make the associations and just read the words on the list. You didn't forget them - you didn't remember them. Go back to the list and try to create associations and - most importantly - make sure that you clearly imagine the desired picture.

If you now take paper and pencil and try to write down all the items in the correct sequence, you will be sure that you can do this without missing any of the ten words. Try it and see. Now try to write the entire sequence in reverse order! Think of a nose and it will remind you of a star. The star will remind you of... salami. Sausage is about... a ball. The ball is about singing, singing is about a bucket, the bucket is about an earring, the earring is about an envelope, the envelope is about a tree, and the tree is about an airplane. Make your own list and try again, and you will feel proud that you were able to remember as long a list as you want and are able to reproduce it in forward and backward order.

Chapter 3
Connection

G.L.: Of course, everyone knows that motivation is a very important part of memory. The mnemonic systems themselves generate enough interest to create motivation.

J.L.: Without motivation, no one will ever achieve anything. Once, when I was in high school, I was selected to Parade magazine's All-American high school basketball team. We were flown to New York on The Steve Allen Show with a college All-American team that included Wilt Chamberlain. During rehearsal, I stood in the theater lobby next to Wilt. Above the window, very high, more than three and a half meters from the floor, hung a cornice. Someone came up to Wilt and said, “Hey Wilt, can you jump up and touch the ledge?”

Wilt replied: “I probably already forgot how to jump. But do you know what I'll tell you? If you can throw a hundred dollar bill onto the ledge, then I will very quickly remember how to do it.”

What you learned in the previous chapter is only a very small part of the memory connection system. We call it a communication system because when you activate memory, you are just connecting different objects together, forming links in the memory chain. One item will inevitably lead you to the next if you find the right association.

By using the link system, you can store lists of any length in memory for as long as you like. Let's talk about this purely hypothetically for now. If you start using communication for practical purposes, then remember a list of some items in order to use it in the future. It is practical use that primarily ensures long-term retention and motivation to remember. You will see that this is true as soon as you learn to practically use this system.

Although you have no reason to be motivated to remember the list in the previous chapter, you can still remember it now if you want. Return to this list tomorrow, only mentally - say, while eating, driving in a car, or doing some other activity. Then return to the list three days later, then a week later, and you will find that you continue to remember the list in its original sequence. You will remember it accurately as long as you want to do so.

The system of connections is used only for remembering sequences, and there are many things in the world that have to be remembered or learned in a certain sequence. Speech is a sequence of thoughts, a formula is a sequence of its constituent parts, any number consisting of two or more digits is also a sequence. (Right now you won't be able to use the chaining system for numbers because you don't yet know how to think about numbers; but soon you will be able to use the chaining system to remember multi-digit numbers.)

The only problem you may have when forming connections is the inability to make the pictures fun and funny. There are four simple rules that will allow you to overcome this difficulty from the very beginning. The simplest rule is replacements, according to which you must imagine one object in the place of another. Let's say in the previous example we advised you to imagine a flying tree instead of a flying airplane, that is, to resort to the substitution rule.

Another rule is violation of proportions. Try to see the object as unimaginably large. It is not for nothing that we so often used the word “giant” in our advice - thereby we advised the use of the method of violating proportions.

The following is the rule exaggeration. Every time we used the word “thousands,” we forced you to resort to this rule. Try to imagine thousands of objects.

And finally, enter into your imaginary pictures action. The action is always easy to remember. In one of the sentences we advised you to see thousands of earrings flying out of an envelope and hitting you in the face. Hitting the face is a memorable action.

Applying one or more of these rules to any picture will help you make them funny and funny. Very soon you will not have to think when using them - you will begin to do it automatically.

Of course, in order to imagine funny pictures, you need to call on your imagination to help. What a pity that such “gears” of the imagination, such as observation, curiosity, delight, and so on, which were spinning like crazy in childhood, begin to rotate more and more slowly as they grow up. Somehow society forces us to turn off our imagination. Children never have problems forming the most stupid and funny associations. They do it easily and naturally.

You will soon see that our system will get the gears of your imagination turning again, although of course they will turn quite slowly at first. But don't despair - your imagination just needs exercise. It is very important that even trying to use our system will automatically become a good exercise for you. Training will improve your ability to imagine and also your powers of observation as you work on yourself. Pretty soon you'll find that when you think of two things, you immediately begin to connect them with funny, counterintuitive associations—those are the first things that come to mind.

Funny pictures are perceived more clearly and are imprinted in the mind for a long time, while a logically perfect picture is seen as more vague and vague. A study conducted at the Southern California College of Optometry showed that when viewing a real object, electrical impulses from the retina travel to the visual centers of the brain. In addition, scientists have discovered (or rather, rediscovered, since the ancient philosophers said the same thing) that, from a physiological point of view, there is not much difference between the electrical signals activated by an imaginary picture and the signals generated in the retina of the eye when perceiving a real image.

So don't be discouraged if you have to spend a lot of effort imagining funny pictures at first. Don’t be confused by the fact that at first it will take you a lot of time. It's good that it requires a lot of work on your part to begin with, as this will provide you with initial awareness.

We cannot express this better than the unknown ancient sage who wrote in the 1st century BC. e. "Rhetoric for Herennius":

...nature itself teaches us what to do. When in everyday life we ​​see insignificant, ordinary and banal objects, we do not remember them, because they do not excite our mind with anything new or remarkable. However, if we see or hear something base, dishonest, unusual, great, incredible or funny, we will remember it for a long time. We tend to forget what happens around us, close to our eyes and ears, but we often remember best the events of our childhood. So there is no other reason why ordinary, ordinary things easily slip out of memory, while amazing and new things linger in it for a long time.

It must be emphasized that this idea is by no means new - it has simply been neglected. So try to make your associations funny and memorable. Again, a quote from Rhetoric for Herennius: “Art will complement nature.” This is exactly what happens in our case. When something strongly touches our senses with its unusualness, grandeur, incongruity or ridiculousness, this “something” outrages the mind and is remembered without any effort. It is difficult for us to remember some ordinary, familiar things. By making associations funny, we make them stand out, unusual, new or surprising. Art (or trained memory) complements nature - all our memory systems are based on this fact.

If you can use the linking technique to remember ten items, you can use it to remember 20 and 30. Of course, it will take you longer to remember 30 items than to remember ten. But it will take you more time in any case - whether you use the connection method or not. There is no limit to the number of items that can be memorized using this method.

We strongly recommend that you practice using the linking technique yourself before moving on to the next chapter. Let someone give you a list of 15 items, and you make a chain of associations for them. You can do this yourself: make a list of items and connect them with associations.

After practicing to your heart's content, demonstrate your abilities to a friend. Have him name out loud a sequence of 15 or 16 objects - as many as you can confidently remember. And then have him say the names of the objects, writing them down on a piece of paper. If he doesn't do this, he won't be able to check whether you reproduced the list correctly (unless, of course, he read this book). Additionally, writing down a sequence of items gives you time to form associations. Ask your friend not to name intangible, abstract things - only concrete things should be on the list: nouns and infinitives.

After he says the list out loud, you repeat it in the same sequence. It's okay if you miss one or two subjects. Ask a friend to repeat them, adjust the associations and repeat the list in reverse order!

But how do you remember the first of these items? Once you start using the linking system for practical purposes, this will no longer be a problem. The subject you memorize begins a chain of associations.

But even now, in the case of a friend, the problem seems completely solvable. Think about some item that is not far from the beginning of the list, and turn the chain of associations back - you will inevitably run into the first item. However, you can do it differently: when your friend says the name of the first item, associate it with the friend himself.

Let's take the list from the previous chapter as an example. If your friend says the word "airplane" first, just imagine your friend with an airplane on his head. That's the trick. Then a chain of associations is formed until the end of the list.

When you are ready to reproduce the list, just look at your friend - you will immediately see a plane on his head, and this association itself will lead you further - to the end of the list.

Again, we recommend that you test yourself with a few sample association chains before continuing to read. You can demonstrate your abilities to friends or test yourself by making the necessary list yourself. We encourage you to demonstrate your successes to others because we know that this gives you confidence in your abilities - you are convinced that the system works!

Chapter 4
Replacing words

G.L.: Until now, I have not met people who have never thought of similar-sounding words or phrases that have no relation in meaning to what is being discussed. For example: “Are they walking on the balcony? “No, horses don’t go to the ball.”

J.L.: I also remember a similar joke: “What was the elephant doing when Napoleon came? I was nibbling the grass.”

G.L.: I always liked how children in church would distort the Lord’s Prayer if they didn’t understand the meaning of the word “temptation.” They often said: “Don’t bring us to an assassination attempt.”

It is very easy to remember the names of all Latin American countries in alphabetical order. Maybe that's the least of your worries, but that's not the point right now. The point is that we need to show you how to create images of abstractions, such as names. We repeat once again: if you manage to make the intangible tangible and meaningful, then it, this intangible, will be remembered by itself. This is a good exercise for practicing your linking skills and will also introduce you to the method of substituting words in mnemonic systems.

The word replacement method can be applied to any material, no matter how abstract. Basically, this is done like this: if you hear or see a word or phrase that seems abstract and incorporeal to you, think of something tangible that sounds the same as an abstract word, but can be represented in the form of a visual image.

As a rule, we cannot create a visual image of a person's name, the name of a thing, or a place. Names and titles are mostly intangible and therefore very difficult to remember. For example, it is difficult to imagine figuratively or create an association for the word “Cuba”. But you can easily imagine figuratively children's blocks from which kids build towers. “Cube” sounds very similar to “Cuba” and will quickly remind you of this country. Plus, you can associate the cubes with anything else. If you are trying to remember the names of countries in alphabetical order, you can create the following associations: imagine how your friend Maxim, as a child, plays with children's blocks. Maksimka – that’s what you call him – will vividly remind you of Mexico, the country whose name follows Cuba on our list.

You probably won’t be able to imagine Haiti and Guyana figuratively. But you can easily imagine a traffic police building into which a pack of hyenas burst into. The traffic police will help you remember Haiti, and the hyenas will not let you forget about Guyana. Now it’s worth thinking about which of the two pictures should go first. Not to mention the fact that in this case the names are arranged in alphabetical order, this difficulty arises because we took a pair taken out of the sequence. There will be no problem if you start making connections from the very beginning or using more than two names. This example reveals the essence of the method of forming connections - one item should lead to the next.

We repeat once again: you will have to strain your imagination somewhat, and the more often you begin to form conscious associations, the easier it will be for you to do this in the future, since in the process of work not only your memory, but also your imagination will begin to improve. In his treatise On the Soul, Aristotle wrote:

...sensations perceived by the five senses are first processed through the imagination, and only the formed images become the material for their mental perception. Imagination is the mediator between perception and thought.

The part of the brain that is responsible for creating images makes higher thinking processes possible. The mind never works without mental images. Thinking uses figurative pictures for its work. A person who is deprived of the ability for imaginative perception will never be able to learn anything, because, no matter how abstract his reasoning may be, in essence, his mind works with images created by the imagination.

Aristotle argued that everyone is capable of thinking because “it is possible to visually imagine various things in the ways with which people skilled in improving memory teach us to form images.”

Now We teaching you how to “make images” of intangible things. The pictures (stand-ins for words, thoughts, or phrases) you use remind you of the abstract material. Let us emphasize once again: even attempt take advantage of our idea should improve your memory. Trying to find a replacement word for anything will force you think about this subject, focus on it, which you usually don’t do.

If in the examples we have given the replacement word does not remind you of the object to be remembered, then this is undoubtedly because you are using the replacement word we have suggested that does not suit you. Usually it will still help, but it will work better if you come up with a replacement word, thought or phrase that is suitable for you. Again, our suggestions relieve you of the need to develop your own imagination and deprive you of "initial awareness."

But we have no choice, and we will offer you our options. If you want to use them, great. However, do not forget to imagine bright, distinct images. Let's return, however, to the list of Latin American countries: are you convinced that by coming up with a replacement word or phrase for each of them and forming associative connections, you will be able to remember them? It's easy and will give you a lot of pleasure.

If you don't want to memorize a list of countries in alphabetical order, then try to remember at least a few - just for practice and exercise your imagination. Associative linking will be a great practice for forming substitute words or phrases, forming visual images and associations to build connections.

Below we provide an alphabetical list of all Latin American countries. Later, having studied peg system, you can go back to this and try to remember the countries by numbers. When connecting visual images of countries, pause after each five to remember them well and reliably connect them with each other.

1. Argentina

4. Bolivia

5. Brazil

6. Venezuela

9. Guatemala

10. Guiana

11. Honduras

12. Dominican Republic

13. Colombia

14. Costa Rica

16. Mexico

17. Nicaragua

18. Panama

19. Paraguay

21. El Salvador

22. Suriname

23. Uruguay

25. Ecuador

Try to remember the list from the very beginning by thinking of a replacement word or phrase for Argentina. “Silver Country – Argentum in Mud” is perfect. Silver in the mud can be visualized, but Argentina cannot. If you are from an older generation, you probably love tango, and this dance will also remind you of the country of Argentina, as you will immediately imagine Argentine tango. To remember the Bahamas, make up the phrase “We are rich in money.” Now you can form an associative connection: “We are so rich that we keep argentum in the mud.”

For Belize, you can use Baileys liqueur as an image. To remember that Bolivia is the next country, imagine that Baileys gives you a “pain in the mouth” or that the horse Bolivar can’t handle two people because he got drunk on Baileys.

Remember that you can figuratively imagine anything: noun, verb – basically everything. Remember the verb “sing” from the first example.

We formed an associative connection - and you were able to draw a picture for yourself, the same as the pictures of nouns.

For Belize and Bolivia, we came up with the image of a drunken Bolivar. As for Brazil, it seems to us that “breaststroke in the mud” will work well here. A girl swims breaststroke in the mud, escaping from Bolivar. Whatever replacement phrase you come up with, make sure it's easy to visualize.

We move from Brazil to Venezuela. Imagine a broom lying on a beehive - a broom with a beehive. Fleeing from Bolivar, the girl swims to a broom with a beehive.

This is easy to imagine visually. From Venezuela we move to Haiti. Traffic police officers brush off bees flying towards them from the hive with a broom. We move from Haiti to Guyana. A pack of hyenas breaks into the traffic police building. Guyana is followed by Guatemala. Imagine a fight in a restaurant - the head waiter shouts to the instigator: “The hubbub is not enough for you!” There is still noise from dancing, but there is still not much hubbub.

After Guatemala - Guiana. We imagine a liana - it rhymes with Guiana. A parrot sits on a vine and imitates the screams of those fighting.

Beyond Guiana is Honduras. What does Honduras remind us of? Va race to Ros tova, who ran into a vine with a parrot.

If you used these associations or invented your own, then you will remember the first ten countries as ten specific objects connected in an associative chain. Of course, you can use any replacement words or phrases here. Remember that associative linking is a purely personal and individual process. The most successful association is with a subject that you usually think about. As a rule, the best word is the one that comes to mind first.

If you want to practice, remember the first ten countries, and then make a chain of associations with the next five. From the carriage to Rostov we move to the house on the rocks, then to Christopher Columbus, from Columbus to the arm bones, from the bones to the cube, from the cube to Maximka. The formation of associations is left to the reader.

Having formed associative connections, remember the sequence of the first ten countries, then move on to the next five, then to another five. It will be better if you choose replacement words and phrases for them yourself, without resorting to our recommendations: Nicaragua - no cabbage, no stew; Panama - children's Panama hat; Paraguay - parade of guards; Peru - feather; Salvador - fireworks in the yard.

Let's continue the list: Suriname - red lead for painting for us; Uruguay - apricots as a gift to you; Chili - chilibuha; Jamaica - I'm wearing a T-shirt.

If you manage to repeat five names in a row without hesitation, using a combination of replacement words and phrases with associations, then try to name all 26 countries in a row. If you miss a couple of names, go back to them and work on the associations. You will be surprised how easy this kind of memorization is - you will be able to easily do what is difficult or even impossible for most people.

Chapter 5
Long words, meetings and errands, shopping lists

J.L.: One day Simonides was invited to a big feast. During lunch he was called outside to receive a letter. At this time, the building collapsed and all the guests died. Simonides was able to accurately identify all the dead, despite the fact that their bodies were mutilated beyond recognition. When asked how he managed this, Simonides replied that he used a system of recall to do this.

G.L.: Maybe it really was a big feast, but, for example, Lucius Scipio remembered by name and by sight all the citizens of Rome.

J.L.: I think, Harry, that during your career you have met and remembered even more people.

G.L.: It's right. At last count, I remembered about 20 million people - you could make up an entire country out of them!

J.L.: Do you know that General George Marshall listened to reporters' questions during press conferences without interrupting his main speech, and after finishing it, he answered all the reporters' questions in turn and was never mistaken? To do this, he associated the key words and meaning of the question with the person and name of the reporter. By the way, James Farley's fantastic memory for names and faces helped Franklin Roosevelt win the first presidential election.

G.L.: Did you know I knew David Roth? He became famous for his phenomenal memory at the beginning of the twentieth century. The last time I spoke with him was at the Rotary Club, where a reception was being held to celebrate his 96th birthday. He then told me: “I won’t strain myself too much, Harry, I’ll just remember the phone numbers of all the guests.” And there were almost 200 of them!

J.L.: Maybe people with trained memory live longer. In any case, memory training allows you to maintain vigor, intelligence and common sense for a long time, and this probably contributes to longevity.

G.L.: Let's hope!

The famous chess player Harry Pillsbury was known not only as a wonderful player, but also as a person with a phenomenal memory. One day, two professors decided to conduct an experiment and asked Pillsbury to remember a list of 30 words after one reading. The chess player reproduced the list from memory in forward and reverse order. Moreover, he remembered the list the next day. This success added something to Pillsbury's fame, but you too can repeat his feat if you use a system of substituting words and forming associations.

It must be said that the list of words Pillsbury read was more difficult to remember than the list of Latin American countries. These words are: “antipyretic”, “periosteum”, “takadiastase”, “plasmon”, “ambrosia”, “threlkeld”, “streptococcus”, “staphylococcus”, “micrococcus”, “plasmodium”, “Mississippi”, Freiheit, “Philadelphia”, “Cincinnati”, “athletics”, “no war”, “Etchenberg”, “American”, “Russian”, “philosophy”, “Pietgietersrust”, “salmagundi”, “Umizillikutsi”, “Schlechtersneck”, “ Manyinzama", "theosophy", "catechism", "matjesrolmops".

You, too, will be able to remember all these words in their original sequence, using two methods already known to you - forming connections and replacing words. Antip the heretic will remind you of the antipyretic. Link this simple picture with the phrase “Give a feast to the guests” (“periosteum”). You can now imagine Antipas the heretic (any Antipas at your discretion) giving a feast to the guests. Try to vividly imagine this picture.

“Give a feast to the guests” is associated, in turn, with “such a wonderful fairy tale.” One of the guests tells the others a wonderful tale. The next association is a plasma TV, which tells a wonderful tale.

We now move on to the food of the gods (“ambrosia”), from it to the trill of the skald (“threlkeld”), and then to the coca striptease (“streptococcus”), the coca bet (“staphylococcus”), the coca microscope (“micrococcus”), fashion plaza ("Plasmodium"), a bowl of soup ("Mississippi"), freedom in German (Freiheit), Filat with elves ("Philadelphia"), zinc price tag ("Cincinnati"), athlete and Co. ("athletics") , the slogan “No to war”, the leak in (ice)berg (“Etchenberg”), the phrase “And I’m finished” (“American”), the Russian hero (“Russian”), the philosopher Spinoza (“philosophy”), Pete with a guitar fair-haired guy (“Pitgietersrust”), then “Alma the Dog, don’t gundi” (“Salmagundi”), “smart evil Tutsis” (“Umizillikutsi”), “There is slag all around, but no containers” (“Schlechtersneck”), “Manya and Zyama" ("Manyinzama"), "that about Sophia" ("theosophy"), "katukh from the manger" ("catechism"), "Mother eats rolmops" ("matjesrolmops").

Coming up with associations like this may not seem easy to you. Yes, of course, memorizing such a complex list will require more work than memorizing, say, 27 simple items. But think about how much work it will take to haphazardly memorize 27 such words. Moreover, it will most likely prove to be an impossible task. Coming up with replacement words, phrases or thoughts, as well as linking them, is fun: it forces you to use your imagination and focus. Not only that, it works!

Whatever associations the replacement phrases evoke in you, these associations should be specific and easy to represent in the form of an image. For example, when you say “cook’s headquarters,” you can clearly imagine a ship’s galley with a cook sitting on a throne. But that's not all: you can remember words by their first letters. (In the next chapter, we'll show you how to memorize letters visually.) When you say, "Alma the dog, don't goondi," you can picture your favorite growling shepherd dog.

Try repeating the list. What Pillsbury could do, you can do too! You will be surprised at how easy it is to remember after a few practices.

Associative linking of difficult words can be likened to some simplified action that prepares you to perform a more complex action. It's not often that you have to memorize difficult words, but the idea of ​​forming associative connections can be very, very fruitful. Below we will show you how to easily remember your daily to-do list. If you need to remember a list of simple tasks and instructions, then you can immediately use associative connections without resorting to substitute words or phrases.

For example, you need to pick up a lamp you ordered from a store. In addition, you must not forget to buy a pack of A4 paper. Create an association - connect the lamp with the paper. Imagine, for example, that you insert not sheets of paper into the printer, but a lit lamp. Or imagine a huge sheet of paper lying on the table and flashing with a bright light when you pull the string. Choose one of these pictures or come up with your own and draw it in your imagination.

In addition, you need to pick up your suit from the cleaners. Continue the chain of associations: mentally dress yourself up in sheets of paper instead of a suit.

In addition, you promised your wife to call the pool and arrange training for the child. Imagine an empty (without you) suit floating in a pool.

For several days now you have been planning to buy light bulbs. Imagine huge light bulbs swimming in a pool.

If you can really vividly imagine these stupid pictures, you will undoubtedly remember everything you had to do that day. Start with a lamp - this will help you immediately unfold the entire chain, which itself will emerge in your memory. In order to bring this idea to life, think through a chain of associations in the evening, and in the morning, while getting dressed or having breakfast, repeat it.

If you remember something else during the recall process, insert a new item at the end of the list. It is very important to repeat the entire chain before leaving the house, so as not to forget to take with you the things you need to complete all your tasks. For example, if you need to get your suit cleaned, then when you remember this, you will also remember to take the receipt out of the drawer and put it in your pocket.

Throughout the day, return to the chain of associations from time to time - for example, when walking down the street, eating, or doing anything else. Whenever you remember an assignment that you haven’t completed yet, you will simultaneously remember that it needs to be done and do it without putting it off. To be sure, run through the chain of associations before you go home.

Practical use of the method of forming associations will save you a lot of time and relieve you of many difficulties. The worst that can happen is that the method doesn't work and you forget to do something. Don’t be upset, because this is how everything has happened all my life!

The same applies to remembering a list of important purchases. It is clear that this is not the most important thing in life. However, people who write a list of necessary things in advance often forget to take it with them or look at it only after returning home from the store.

Imagine the things you are going to buy and associate them with figurative associations. Remember that the pictures should be funny - for example, you peel an orange and find a milk cow or a carton of milk inside it. You milk a cow, but instead of milk, hunks of bread fall out of the udder. When shopping, run your mind through a chain of associations from time to time. We guarantee that in this case you will not forget anything.

Chapter 6
Speeches and Performances

J.L.: Once, after graduating from Ohio University, I was invited to give a speech at a sports festival at one school. After the speech, I was applauded, and then, as people began to leave, a boy came up to me and said: “Mr. Lucas, I really like watching you play basketball, but I have never heard anything worse than your speech!”

The mother, standing behind the guy, clasped her hands: “Oh, Mr. Lucas, don’t pay attention to him, he’s just repeating what others say!”

G.L.: And I was once greatly let down by the presiding officer, even before the speech. I usually always give instructions on how to introduce myself, and to save time, I do it very briefly, in a simplified form. I was supposed to give a speech after lunch, and before that I asked the chairman to introduce me as follows: “Ladies and gentlemen, now I have a little surprise for you. I want to introduce you to one unique, unrepeatable person, blah blah blah. You've all seen him on TV and so on and so forth." While I was speaking, this man was writing something down in a notebook.

When lunch was over, the chairman stood up, walked to the podium and said literally the following: “Ladies and gentlemen, now I have a little surprise for you. I want to introduce you to one unique, unrepeatable person, blah blah blah. You all saw him on TV..."

Probably the biggest mistake you can make is to try to memorize your speech, word for word. First of all, there is no need for this. It is assumed that if you are asked to speak on a particular topic, then you really understand it.

Secondly, memorizing a speech word for word will lead to you pronouncing it as something mechanically memorized. In addition, with such memorization, you can stumble for a long time on some accidentally forgotten word. Why remember one word if it probably has dozens of synonyms?

You can, of course, read a speech from a piece of paper, but this is not the best solution, because your task is to capture the attention of the audience, and monotonous reading is more likely to put them to sleep. You will not achieve much effect if you start looking up from the paper from time to time and look into the audience. Moreover, it can even be harmful, since you risk losing the place from which you were distracted, and then you will mumble and clear your throat, trying to find it.

It is best to speak in your own words, strictly adhering to the sequence thoughts. Speech is a chain of thoughts. If they are inconsistent, then you should not expect much effect from such a speech. You already know how to use the association system to remember sequences of objects. A way of forming associative connections plus one more, new idea - and you get a way to deliver speeches in a strict sequence of its main thoughts.

First, write or type the text of your speech. It should contain everything you want to say about certain ideas that seem important to you. Read the speech out loud to better grasp its essence. Now let's move on to the “new idea”. For each thought, choose a keyword that will remind you of the whole thought.

This is much easier to do than it might seem. There is rarely a thought - whether expressed in one sentence or two paragraphs - that cannot be expressed in one word or phrase. You will have to link exactly the key words (or key thoughts) into chains. It is thanks to these coherent chains that you will remember your speech - thought by thought!

Below are excerpts from a speech given at a sales and dealer conference. The speaker was asked to discuss the decline in sales over the previous two years and suggest ways to improve the situation.

The speech lasted 35 minutes. Excerpts from it have been selected to show how the speaker used key words or ideas to avoid losing the thread during the speech.

The problem is quite obvious. Product sales volume remained the same, but declined catastrophically profit margin. The reasons, it seems to me, are also obvious. The cost of materials and production has increased, and prices have risen accordingly. The problem is this: if we continue to raise prices, sales volume will decrease as a result. The question is to increase profit margins.

The success of all our business projects depends on good name each specific store. There are many ways to do this, but you need to start from the policy of not allowing returns...

New line– “Starlight”, “Larch”, “Childhood Attachment”, “Meteor” and “Honeymoon” - is actually very good, it will help us bring a fresh breath into the stagnant swamp. We haven't produced anything new for a long time...

We need to work hard to increase sales profitability. Why, strictly speaking, should the buyer leave the store with only the thing he came for? A little imagination and ingenuity, a little effort - and we can literally force the buyer to buy at least one more thing, even just some small thing, an accessory to the purchased product. You can use the tactic of selling two products for the price of one or...

How to get customers back again and again come back to the store? How many of you are conscientious about tracking sales? Who benefits from names and addresses on sales receipts that collect dust in folders on your shelves? Use this archive to notify customers about promotions and sales...

Key words are in italics where they correspond to individual thoughts. It must be emphasized that the speaker knew perfectly well what he wanted to say - he had no problems with this. He was afraid of one thing - to miss some thought entirely, and, in order to prevent this from happening, he resorted to the formation of associative connections.

There are two ways to do this: either make a list of keywords, or underline them and link them together. You can also link keywords as you speak. As you gain experience, you will increasingly resort to this method.

So, the first keyword or thought is profit margin. In order to remember this phrase, you need to come up with a replacement word or phrase. For example: imagine that everything roses of the world have arrived to your city on a huge ship. This phrase will undoubtedly remind you of the main idea of ​​the speech passage. To remember this main idea, it will be enough to simply mentally say “all the roses of the world.”

The next key phrase is let's go to the shops. Here it will be enough to imagine that all the roses that arrived went to the flower shops in giant buckets. Then comes another key phrase: good name. In this case, you can simply continue the associative connection: imagine a smiling giant, on whose side your name is written in huge letters. This giant gently strokes the child’s head, handing him a rose from a bucket in a flower shop.

WITH new line This picture can be connected by imagining brand new magazines, fresh from the printing house.

Building such a chain of associations allows you to achieve two goals. Firstly, it forces you to concentrate (gain initial awareness) on the thoughts of the speech, and secondly, it ensures that their desired sequence is maintained. Having a firm grasp of the sequence will give you confidence that might not otherwise be there.

You will only have to remember the first key phrase - “The roses of the world have arrived.” She will remind you that you were going to start with the profit margin, so start talking about it, and talk about it in your own words. When you have said everything you wanted about the amount of profit, you will automatically move on to the key phrase let's go to the shops. If you pre-recorded the speech, then “let's go to the shops” will vividly remind you of what this phrase is about, and you will immediately grasp the next thought. Now we just need to talk about what should be done to get people to go to the stores.

Try this idea in practice and you will see that it works well. Of course, you may wonder what to do if you need to remember several facts related to one of the main ideas of the speech. For example, you want to remember the names of products made on a new production line. To do this, you just need to form a “side” or “derivative” chain of related associations. Having created the main circuit, return to new line and form a side chain.

For example, one can imagine lined up in line glowing stars. This line whimsically bends and turns into a wreath of branches larches, nailed to your door. You take this wreath in your arms and cradle it like a child to whom you tied silver chain. The child soars into the sky meteor, finds another meteor there, which he copes with Honeymoon. (New line - "Starlight", "Larch", "Children's Affection", "Meteor" and "Honeymoon".)

As you give your speech, you will notice that new line itself will lead you to a side chain of associations, literally forcing you to remember the names of the goods produced. The same new line will lead you to increase sales profitability. If products have digital codes, then you can remember them too by including them in a chain of figurative associations - when you learn to imagine numbers figuratively.

If for some reason you still want to remember your speech word for word, it will be enough to just read it a few times. Since you write the speech yourself, when voicing your theses, your own words will most likely come to mind.

The same system - a combination of associative connections and keywords to indicate thoughts - can be applied in almost the same way to reading any materials or listening to lectures. Simply, while reading or listening, you need to connect keywords into associative chains - this method will force you to read actively, focusing on the material. The same goes for listening. It will be difficult for your mind to wander if you begin to catch key words that will later remind you of the main ideas of the lecture. The next time you read a book or listen to a lecture, try using this method and you will be surprised how much material will be retained in your memory.

Additionally, this system can be used to memorize song lyrics and roles. Try this method, and then review the material to be learned a few more times. First, it is very important to remember his thought by thought, and only Then- word by word. The language itself will help you remember words, because it has patterns - how to talk about certain things. If you clearly imagine the sequence of thoughts, the right words will come to mind. If you have internalized thoughts, the worst that can happen is that you repeat them in words other than those originally written. But you can really fail if you forget the sequence of thoughts - you simply won’t know what to talk about next.

One famous actress, who used this method for some time to memorize roles, wrote: “This system turns into creativity an activity that I considered incredibly monotonous and boring!”

We will discuss other ways to memorize read text a little later, but now we will tell you how to use this system to memorize jokes, anecdotes and incidents from life. There are two problems to solve here: remembering the joke and, in addition, remembering its idea, premise and ending.

Many famous comedians, to memorize jokes and anecdotes, associate the keywords of one joke with the keywords of the next, and so on. They remember the jokes themselves, but they need to take care first of all about remembering their sequence. For example, there is a connection between oranges, elephants and pumps, which helps to remember a sequence of jokes about oranges, politicians and gas stations.

Likewise, the jokes themselves are very easy to remember. Let's remember the ancient joke:

– I don’t like this geologist!

– If you don’t like it, don’t eat it!

Build some extremely stupid association - imagine a geologist boiling in a cauldron and a horde of savages sitting around the fire, salivating. This way you will remember the idea and ending of the joke.

Chapter 7
Words of foreign languages ​​and native language

J.L.: When I played for the American team at the 1960 Rome Olympics, the first match was against the Japanese. I asked one of the translators to teach me a couple of Japanese phrases to greet our opponents the next morning.

I didn’t have any difficulties with the word “hello”, since the word sounds like “Ohio”, and why should I remember the name of my home state? Having used my system, I remembered a couple more phrases.

The game was scheduled to start at 9:30 am. Just before the start, I walked up to one of the Japanese players and said, “Ohio, gozai mosk?”, which means “Hi, how are you?” The Japanese smiled broadly at me, glad that there was an American who could speak his native language.

What do you think, he broke ranks, bowed to me and started saying something very quickly in Japanese. There was a hitch because it looked like this guy decided to talk to me about something, forgetting that we came to play basketball.

One judge was from Russia, the second from France. I only spoke English. The Japanese and both judges speak only in their native languages. Thus, none of the four understood what the other three were saying. The referees were forced to call a timeout, put the players on the sideline and slightly delay the start of the game. Throughout the game, this Japanese guy tried to talk to me at every opportunity. I couldn’t tell him in Japanese that I didn’t understand a single word, so I answered him over and over again: “Hello!” I think he really liked it.

G.L.: If you had applied your system to learning Japanese a week earlier, you would have known many more words than your “Ohio.”

Note scientific ed. Note scientific ed. German).